Do You Guys Like Kids?
by Tiamat1972
Summary: My first G1 story. Ratchet interviews someone to help around Medbay but things don't go according to plan.


DISCLAIMERS: I don't own Transformers. They just came over from Hasbro to visit and be general pains-in-the-aft. All the humans in the story are mine. Rated T for language.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Amazing. I actually wrote something WITHOUT the Lambo Twins in it. Set in G1 before the construction of Autobot City. Read, review and enjoy.

"Stop pacing honey, you'll do fine"

"I've never been flown out to an interview before…"

"I know"

"This is a really big opportunity."

"I know."

"I hope they'll like me."

"They'll love you."

"What time is it?"

"Five minutes from the last time you asked."

"Argh! I'm so nervous."

"I know. Here, hold your son. You won't see him for a few days. Andrea, go hug you mommy."

Embracing and being embraced by her children made her feel better.

"Ma'am? Your flight has arrived. If you would follow me, please?" A security guard stood in the doorway.

"Good luck honey."

"Oh, come on. Might be your only chance to see them. Let Andrea go to school and tell them she met an Autobot."

"All right."

They entered the hanger. There were three Autobots waiting for them. Two were obviously jets – she could see the wings and nosecones peeking over and around their backs. The third stood in the center and looked to be in charge. He appeared to be a jet as well but she wasn't sure.

"Mrs. Jessica Tillman ?" he addressed her unsurely, eyeing her large groups.

'That would be me, my family just came to see me off."

"Ah, Okay. I'm Silverbolt, commander of the Aerialbots and these are Air Raid and Fireflight, two of my team."

"Hello Air Raid, Fireflight and uh do I call you commander or Silverbolt?"

"Just Silverbolt is fine ma'am."

"Just Jess for me then. Ma'am makes me want to turn around and see who else you are talking too."

"Will do Jess."

"Thank you. This is Greg, my husband and Andrea, my daughter. And this is Corey." She held up the baby in her arms.

Fireflight crouched down for a closer look. "Wow I don't think I've ever see such a small human before."

Air Raid came over to look too. He cuffed Fireflight's nosecone – "What about Daniel, airhead?"

"Oh right, except for him."

Andrea, who had shyly hung back with her father, now cautiously came over. "I'm Andrea. That's my baby brother, Corey. He's little and I'm a big girl."

A look of polite confusion crossed all three Autobot's faces and in unison they turned to Jess.

"Just go with it. She's four and that's about as much sense as she makes. At least she's using real words." She replied with a resigned patience.

"Ah well ok then. If you have your documents handy, we'll get them processed so we can get going. I'll leave you two to chat with the young lady." The last was addressed to Air Raid and Fireflight as Jess gave her son back to her husband with a parting kiss. She handed Silverbolt the document disk, which he quickly scanned. Everything was in order.

Andrea, meanwhile, encouraged by her attentive and unusual audience, held court like a little queen. She enthusiastically talked and giggled about a myriad of topics. The two Aerialbots listened with rapt attention, apparently drinking her every word and gesture. They weren't sure what she was saying most of the time, but were fascinated by the intensity in which she said it.

"Looks like everything is in order. If you would just follow me out to the tarmac, please. Air Raid, Fireflight time to go." Silverbolt handed the disk back and walked towards the hanger doors.

"Andrea, say bye to your new friends, and come give mommy a hug."

"Bye Raid. Bye Flight. Bye mommy." Andrea waved at the Aerialbots then ran into her mother's arms for that hug. Jess kissed her husband and son, grabbed her bags and followed Silverbolt outside. She watched in awe as he transformed and then approached the staircase he extended cautiously. She gingerly climbed the steps and made her way to his cockpit.

"Something wrong?" Silverbolt asked.

"Does this hurt you?" she asked nervously.

"No, you are much too small to hurt me."

"It's kinda weird riding around in a person."

"Most people would think it's strange talking to a jet."

"But you aren't actually a jet. You are a jet-shaped Autobot. A person"

"We Aerialbots tend to think of ourselves as jets."

"Isn't that kind of like me calling myself a monkey?"

"Never looked at it that way. Hmmm. So what made you apply to work with the Autobots?"

"You'd never believe it if I told you."

"You might be surprised."

Jess and Silverbolt chatted companionably for the rest of the trip. When they landed, she noticed they were short one jet-bot.

"Where's, uhm, Fireflight?" she wracked her brains for the name. She was bad with names

"Oh something nabbed his interest and he wandered off. He's on his way to catch up now." Air Raid told her.

"Oh, all right."

Silverbolt showed her to the room, she was going to be staying in, then showed her around the facilities.

"I thought I was meeting with Ratchet right away?" she asked Silverbolt.

"He had some emergency surgery to finish up. H contacted me just a few minutes ago and he will be ready to meet with you shortly."

"Alright. Thanks for staying with me and showing me around, Silverbolt. Most people would have dumped me in a waiting room and left me to get nervous."

"It's been my pleasure."

They walked over to the office in Medbay where Silverbolt introduced Jess to Ratchet. He left them and was headed to his quarters when a familiar sound caught his audios from one of the common rooms. It sounded suspiciously like a giggle but where had he heard it before? Curious, he wandered over and looking. His optics widened and his mouth dropped open.

"Oh slag!" he thought

"- and I've been trained in the basics of hydraulics and pneumatics." Jess was giving a summary of her skills and qualifications to Ratchet.

"Just the basics?"

"I need a year's worth of experience before I can study the next level."

"You have a very broad range of skills but not a lot of experience in the areas we're requiring."

"I thought I had applied for the entry-level position. I have the qualifications for that."

"Mmmm, yes. Most of them, How well do you do in a crisis situation?"

"What do you mean?"

"We are in the middle of a war. Some days there are a lot of causulties and they never seem to end. The last lady we had here crawled under a cupboard and whimpered. How do you react in a crisis?"

"I can't say I've ever been in a situation like that so I'm not entirely sure. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't crawl under a cupboard thought. I tend to take stressful situations head-on and panic afterwards."

"An honest answer. Good. We'll … Blaster, what the frag do you want? You are interrupting my interview."

"Sorry dude but got a bad message for the little lady that can't wait." Turns to Jess. "Family emergency. You need to call home immediately."

"Damn it! Uhm …"

"You can call from here. Blaster, connect her will you? I'll see what Silverbolt has been paging me about and arrange for transport back. Ratchet to Silverbolt."

"Thank Primus Ratchet. It's about time. Mrs. Jess is still with you?" Silverbolt was uncharacteristically agitated.

"Yes, she is, Look 'Bolt', she's gonna need some emergency transport back home – " Ratchet was interrupted by the Concorde.

"Just bring her to lounge 2."

"But 'Bolt'." Ratchet tried again.

"Just bring her Ratchet. Now. We can arrange everything here." Silverbolt sounded a little desperate.

"Alright, Ratchet out." The medic turned to Blaster and his interviewee.

During his conversation with Silverbolt he had caught snatches of Jess's call home. Pieces like "What's happened? What do you mean she's gone? What did the police say? How's Greg handling it? Who's watching the baby?" which was followed by the most impressive round of cursing he had ever heard from a human female. It was so completely at odds with her appearance, small and delicate, even by human standards, that it was somewhat startling. Blaster was blushing. She came over to where Ratchet was standing.

"Ratchet, I have to leave. My daughter has gone missing. Disappeared right from her kindergarten class. Do you suppose Silverbolt could give me a lift back? I hate to impose but it's an emergency."

"I'm to take you to Silverbolt right now. We can arrange things when we see him. Right this way. I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. The police have any leads?" Ratchet had an itchy feeling about this. Something about the timing…

"None. They even had the canine units out. It's like she disappeared off the face of the earth. If someone had grabbed her, the dogs should have picked that up." The women was visibly worried and upset but was holding it together, Ratchet saw approvingly. The arrived at the lounge section and saw Silverbolt waving them done to one of the rooms. He looked as embarrassed as Ratchet had ever seen him.

As they made their way towards the Aerialbot Commander they began to hear a multitude of voices raised in speaking and in laughter. Halfway there, Jess suddenly stopped, a shocked look on her face and cocked her head in a listening pose.

"SON OF A BITCH!" she exclaimed and took off at a run, blowing past a startled Ratchet and Silverbolt into the room. Ratchet was unsure what had set her off, he hadn't heard anything different about the den.

As Ratchet continued down the hall towards Silverbolt, he heard another sound.

"Andre, what the hell are you doing here?" Everyone is worried sick. Get over here, right now young lady!"

"That's my mommy. She's really mad." Andrea calmly told her Autobot audience.

Since the little girl didn't seem to be moving, instead she stood on the table watching her mother with serene defiance on her tiny face, Jess stalked over to her, Autobots stumbling back out of her path, seemingly shoved aside by the force of her anger. One brave Autobot stayed by the table long enough to give her a boost up before he too, melted back into the crowd.

Jess quickly checked her child over for signs of hurt. She didn't really expect to find any but couldn't help herself due to the fright she had just received. Andrea was in good spirits, excited from her adventure.

"Mommy, Mommy! Fight picked me up and took me for a ride all over the place. We saw clouds and mountains and rain."

"Andrea, you weren't supposed to leave school. You go to school and stay there until Mommy or Daddy picks you up. No one else. This is bad. You don't do this again." She held her daughter by the shoulders, shaking her slightly to emphasize her points.

"But Mommy."

"No buts."

"Mommy …"

"No" and that ended that. For Andrea anyway.

The assembled Autobots had thought she had calmed down upon being reunited with her child. They were wrong. Jess was just getting warmed up. She looked around and located Fireflight in the crowd. "YOU!"

"Me?" Fireflight squeaked. For a 30ft tall robot, he was doing a good impression of a mouse.

Jess glared around the room until she spotted Air Raid. "And you." She pointed at the floor in front of her.

Both Aerialbots meekly slunk forward to the indicated position. In the background, a scandalized Silverbolt looked pretty impressed and Ratchet thoughtful. Apparently this delicate flower had some steel in her.

"Just what the hell did you two think you were doing? You kidnapped a five-year-old girl out of her school!"

"I didn't kidnap her. I was with you." Air Raid protested.

"You knew what he was doing so that makes you an accessory. Shut up." Jess growled, infuriated at the interruption.

"But – "

"You knew, you didn't stop him and you didn't tell me when I ASKED you where he was!" Jess fairly roared. Air Raid shut up and hung his head.

She turned to a very nervous Fireflight.

"Do you have any idea what you did?"

"I-I-I just wanted to talk to her some more. She's cute."

"Did it ever occur to you to ASK me if she could come? Instead of causing her to disappear completely? Her father is probably being fitted for a straight jacket right now as we speak, her teachers turned the school upside down looking for her, the police are ready to do house to house searches, my son hasn't stopped crying; he wants his sister. AND I had to talk to my Mother In Law to find all this out. The Queen Bitch from Hell Herself!" Jess started out in a conversational tone, slowly increasing the volume until she was screaming out the last bit. She paused, panting for breath, a loud sound in the now silent room. She continued, back in the conversational tone only paired with a menacing growl. "That last bit alone merits keel hauling."

Fireflight seemed to shrink under verbal barrage. When silence descended, he looked up from his half-cringe and squeaked out an "I'm sorry."

"Yes you are. Once you help the ladies off the table, you will report to my office and we'll discuss how sorry. You too Air Raid." Silverbolt stepped in. Air Raid nodded and didn't protest. Fireflight looked like his doom had been pronounced. He gently scooped up Jess and Andrea and placed them on the floor before following Air Raid out of the room.

Silverbolt knelt before the mother and daughter. "I'm truly sorry for the trouble my team has caused you."

"It's alright Silverbolt. It's not your fault. They didn't ask you either." Jess smiled sheepishly at the Concorde Autobot, a little embarrassed by her tirade. "I need to use the phone again to let my husband know where she is. Preserve what's left of his sanity and all."

"Right this way." Silverbolt stood to lead them to a phone.

Ratchet cut in. "Tell him to pack a few bags too. We'll send someone to pick him and your son up."

Jess looked confused. "Huh?"

Ratchet smiled. "You're hired."

Jess was blown away. "But I just chewed two of your soldiers new a- uhm –exhaust ports."

Ratchet smiled. "Exactly what I would have done in similar circumstances. I have no worries about you at all. Welcome to the team. Did you have any questions?"

Jess blinked trying to absorb this. "Well I had one but it's been answered already?"

"What was it?"

"Do you guys like kids?"

Ratchet and Silverbolt chuckled as they lead her to a phone.


End file.
